361

The women who came forward against Harvey Weinstein reacted with fury after the disgraced media mogul’s rape and sexual assault convictions were overturned by a New York appeals court on Thursday.

Weinstein, 72, was found guilty in 2020 of raping and assaulting two women, and is serving his 23-year sentence at a prison in upstate New York.

In a 4-3 decision on Thursday, New York’s highest court ruled the original judge made “egregious errors” in the trial by allowing prosecutors to call witnesses whose allegations were not related to the charges at hand.

Weinstein was once one of Hollywood’s most well-connected and powerful producers who made a series of Oscar-winning films. But behind the glamourous facade, it was a different story. More than 80 women have accused him of abuse ranging from groping to rape. Even with his conviction overturned in New York, he remains convicted of rape in California.

The Weinstein revelations launched the #MeToo movement in 2017, which saw women from all corners of society come forward to talk about their experiences of sexual harassment and assault.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] dohpaz42@lemmy.world 58 points 2 months ago

Charles McCrory is spending his 38th year behind bars, convicted of killing his wife. The bite mark expert in his case recanted his testimony, saying he now knows he cannot say whether a bite mark on the victim matched McCrory’s teeth. Yet the Alabama courts have declined to free McCrory.

Alabama’s Court of Criminal Appeals ruled earlier this year that the jury was capable of deciding on its own whether the bite marks matched, a finding that ignores science suggesting such perceived visual matches cannot be valid. The court also cited other evidence in the case, including a witness who said he saw McCrory’s truck at the house during the time of the murder. No physical or forensic evidence links him to the crime.

Three years ago, after the bite mark evidence in his case collapsed, McCrory was offered a deal: Plead guilty and walk free. He refused.

“I refused to take it because I didn’t kill her,” McCrory told NBC News from his prison facility. “I did not kill my wife.”

The Innocence Project is now pursuing appeals through the federal courts.

“Prison is hard — a lot of the stories that you see on the news about prisons, particularly Alabama prisons, are true,” McCrory said. “It is a nasty place, and it’s not a place I would wish on anyone.”

“I don’t give up hope,” he said. “And certainly there’s days of disappointment and days when you’re down and out … but I just believe that somewhere there’s a truth in this that will come out, and you can’t give up. That’s just not an option.”

https://news.yahoo.com/bite-mark-analysis-no-basis-204726311.html

That’s disgusting that the courts just can’t admit when they are wrong. Even after the testimony fell through, they still wanted to get a guilty plea out of the guy. I’m not surprised this is in the south. smh

[-] grue@lemmy.world 23 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Three years ago, after the bite mark evidence in his case collapsed, McCrory was offered a deal: Plead guilty and walk free. He refused.

That, right there, is the most disgusting part of the American ~~justice~~ legal system: nobody from the judge on down to the beat cop gives the slightest flying fuck about catching the correct perp; they only care about securing convictions so their records look good. They wanted him to absolve them of having fucked up and imprisoned the wrong person, and his continued imprisonment is nothing but an attempt to force that absolution from him.

[-] homura1650@lemm.ee 14 points 2 months ago

Not just the court. The prosecutor's office as well. Their position is "we are ok with letting you go; as long as we can do it without admitting that we made a mistake".

And this is an institutional problem. The conviction happened 38 years ago. Everyone involved in prosecuting the case is gone. The office of the prosecutor is simply unable to admit that the office made a mistake.

[-] Daft_ish@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Of course, how could the public ever trust them again if they made mistakes? /s

We live in such a bizzare time where facts won't meet up with other facts. Where science rules our daily lives but is distrusted on every level. Where we keep making the same mistakes because some one 100 years ago didn't really care.

this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2024
361 points (98.1% liked)

News

21752 readers
3361 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS